


Theft and Theatrics

by Fight_The_Heteronormatives



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: How Did These Guys Make It Before They Had Nile?, Immortal Antics, M/M, Museum Hiest, Not Everything Is Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:07:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25912576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fight_The_Heteronormatives/pseuds/Fight_The_Heteronormatives
Summary: “Remember that museum in Florence?” he asked, “The one with that ‘Love Through The Ages’ exhibit?”“Must you mention that?” Joe groaned.“Dare I ask?” Nile added from behind Andy, where she was watching their six.She could hear a smile in Andy’s voice as she spoke. “Joe drew a couple of more…risqué pictures of Nicky, along with some early drafts for his poetry, and then lost them. He thought they were gone for good; then we found them in a display in Florence.”“Bastards,” Joe muttered.“They were for our six-hundredth anniversary. They were…not Joe’s best work, perhaps.”“I didn’t think they were that bad.”“You compared my tongue to a sea cucumber.”“I was experimenting!”“Shh!” Andy hissed, but her eyes were sparkling.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 29
Kudos: 285





	1. Chapter 1

Nile had gotten used to the idea that her life was now inescapably and irrevocably weird. According to Joe, once you hit a hundred, you started living for excitement; and if you couldn’t find it, you made it. This was why one of the more memorable ways Nicky had killed him in their early days involved a fake snake he had spent five days carving, a sleeping roll, and multiple stab wounds.

That being said, he had understated how mad things got.

“It has to be here somewhere!” Andy growled, looking under a marble statue for the third (fourth?) time. She was getting more and more frustrated, which made her team more and more desperate to help.

“Do you remember where you saw it last?” Nicky asked, not for the first time.

“No,” she snapped. She frowned, a small crease forming between her brows. She had been pondering the question for some time, but still hadn’t remembered.

Nile had resorted to simply making a show of looking. She had no idea what an Amazonian war ax looked like, and had spent the last few hours holding up ax-shaped weapons to Nicky, who would shake his head and make a gesture with his hands. Something like ‘bigger’, ‘smaller’, ‘almost’, or ‘oh God, put that back before she sees it’.

It was a credit to Andy’s nightmarish training regime that he could communicate that to her in complete silence.

“Why is finding this thing so important?” she asked carefully, feeling like she’d sat on the question long enough.

“It was Andy’s second-favourite,” Joe answered, “She mostly used it for intimidation. It was a little more difficult in a real fight, but it helped give her an air of…”

He scrunched up his face, searching for the right words. He settled on a long string of Italian Nile understood nothing of.

“Right,” Nile replied, nodding along like she knew what he'd said. “How’d she get it?”

“It’s from the old days,” Andy answered. She didn’t turn to look at her, rifling through a massive chest of jewellery that may or may not be priceless. She was elbow deep now, and still going.

Nile frowned. Knowing Andy, ‘the old days’ could be anywhere from the nineteen-twenties till before they kept dates.

Sensing this, Andy specified.

“The Greek amazon warriors were alive and fighting at the time. This was about…a couple of centuries B.C.? It’s hard to pin the date down. I was with them for longer than I normally stayed in one place.”

“It was traditionally wielded by their queen,” Joe continued, “and passed on to the next one when she retired or died. Though they made an exception for Queen Andromache the Deathless.”

“Queen?” Nile echoed. She was starting to feel light-headed at the sheer length of time her new boss had been alive. Simply picturing it was difficult; she couldn’t imagine living it.

“Wow. Should I be curtsying?”

“Try it and see what happens.” Andy threatened. Joe chuckled.

They were interrupted by three quick raps on the tin door of the storage unit.

Everyone froze. Then, in a smooth motion, Joe and Nicky stepped in front of Andy and Nile, while the women grabbed their weapons and passed them forward. Neither man needed to look back to accept the offered guns.

Nile hit the button on the wall that opened the door. It slowly rose from the ground like a garage door, groaning at the strain. The orange afternoon light outlined one shadow standing in front of them, which quickly took the shape of Copley.

He raised an eyebrow at the four guns pointed his way. “Bad time?”

Everyone deflated, lowering their weapons but not relinquishing them.

“We’re looking for something,” Nicky explained.

“Ah,” he said, “Can I help?”

“Unlikely,” Andy answered, turning back to the jewellery with a frown. “Not unless you know where I put a two-and-a-half thousand-year-old battle ax.”

To his credit, Copley seemed to genuinely consider the question. “Sorry,” he said, “I’m afraid I haven’t seen one lying around.”

Joe tentatively turned to Andy. “It might be at another locker?”

They watched Andy. No-one wanted to seem too eager to leave, not with how much she clearly wanted to find the damn thing, but they’d been at this for hours now.

“Which one, though?” she said at last, falling back into a kneeling position. “I would’ve remembered smuggling the thing into Canada, and I can’t think of a reason I’d ship it to Australia.”

“Wait a moment,” Copley interrupted, “What is…?”

He stepped towards a large painting tucked off to the side. A sheet had been thrown over it, but Nile had pulled it half-off for a peek. It was something renaissance in style, about half as tall as a person and wide enough to clearly depict four figures; two seated and two standing behind them.

Joe sent Andy a careful look, before tugging the sheet away completely. Nicky turned the spotlight they’d been using to light up the room to point at the painting.

On the left stood Nicky, dressed in fifteenth-century clothing and smiling slightly at the painter. His hand rested on the couch in front of him, and splayed over said couch was Joe. He was dressed in a similar style, and his own hand reached up and back to wrap around Nicky’s.

Standing next to Nicky was Andy in men’s clothes. She stood tall and straight, her hair pulled tightly back and her shoulders set. She smiled indulgently in the painter’s direction, and despite the stern stance and clothing, she seemed more…open. Less weighed down by the years. Despite her looking identical to how she was now, she seemed younger in the painting.

Sitting next to Joe, with her legs thrown over his lap, was Qyunh.

She wore a floor-length red dress with a tight corset and puffy sleeves. She was smiling as well, but in a more playful way; like she new something no-one else did, and had no intention of sharing. Her hair spilled over her shoulders and the arm of the couch like spilled ink.

It was Andy who finally broke the silence.

“It was painted by a friend of Nicky’s. some Italian artist. Vasari, I think?”

Nile’s head snapped to her. She was looking at the floor unseeingly, looking small.

Copley whistled low. “Who…?”

He must’ve caught Nicky rapidly shaking his head behind Andy’s back, because he didn’t finish the question.

“You know,” Joe said, “I don’t think we checked behind the manuscripts yet? Nicky?”

“No,” answered Nicky, who’d definitely checked there. “That’s a good idea. Copley, why don’t you go fetch us some coffee? We might be here for a while.”

Copley nodded, turning and strolling out, a thoughtful look on his face. Nicky met Nile’s eyes and nodded after him. The message was clear; make sure he doesn’t try anything. Copley had been helpful thus far, but trust was in short supply this century.

They stayed and poured over the locker for the rest of the night. They didn’t complain, or ask for a break; and they definitely didn’t question Andy’s sudden desire to get her affairs in order. By the morning, Nile had fallen asleep on Nicky’s shoulder and Andy had fallen asleep on hers.

...

 _“Museums!”_ Andy hissed venomously at no-one in particular. She was making an effort to stay quiet (probably for the best, given that they were in the middle of something), but it was a token effort at best.

Joe and Nicky nodded in agreement, though neither looked away from their work – Nicky keeping watch down the hallway with night vision goggles, and Joe toying with the locks on the door.

“No respect for privacy or property,” Joe said, “Honestly, it’s like they want all of history to live in perpetual embarrassment. Fuck, where’s Booker when you need him?”

He gave an extra-hard jerk of the lock-picks before quietly returning to work. Deciding to power through the awkwardness, Nicky took over the conversation.

“Remember that museum in Florence?” he asked, “The one with that ‘Love Through The Ages’ exhibit?”

“Must you mention that?” Joe groaned.

“Dare I ask?” Nile added from behind Andy, where she was watching their six.

She could hear a smile in Andy’s voice as she spoke. “Joe drew a couple of more… _risqué_ pictures of Nicky, along with some early drafts for his poetry, and then lost them. He thought they were gone for good; then we found them in a display in Florence.”

“Bastards,” Joe muttered.

“They were for our six-hundredth anniversary. They were…not Joe’s best work, perhaps.”

“I didn’t think they were that bad.”

“You compared my tongue to a sea cucumber.”

“I was experimenting!”

“Shh!” Andy hissed, but her eyes were sparkling.

Nile was going to add her two cents, but she was interrupted by a cheerful beep from the door.

“Finally,” Joe sighed, “We have half-an-hour before the system comes back online.”

“Can we get pizza after?” Nile asked.

Nicky wrinkled his nose. “Must you blaspheme in front of me?”

“Yes,” Andy ignored Nicky's comment, “but only once we have my damn ax.”


	2. Chapter 2

Sunday evening in their new apartment started off suspiciously normal.

Copley was invited over, Nicky had found some very well-aged wine in the Great Ax Hunt of ’20, and Nile was placed on side-dish duty.

Copley had showed up at five minutes to eight, awkwardly fidgeting as he handed over a bowl of coleslaw. Nile was still helping Joe set the table, so Copley helped them finish up. It was disturbingly domestic, given that Copley was their handler-stalker-weapons dealer. Nicky brought out the salad and garlic bread, followed by the wine, and Nile thought that maybe, just maybe, the night would go normally.

Then Andy broke out the main course.

“Where-?” Copley started, then he seemed to reconsider. So, Nile asked on his behalf.

“Where did you even get a _boar?”_

“I’m sorry, are you complaining?” Andy asked from around a roast boar half the size and just as heavy as a person.

“No, no,” Nile said quickly, because it smelt amazing, “I just- we’re in _the Bronx._ How…?”

“Sometimes,” Nicky said sagely, “It is best not to question how Andy does what she does.”

The boar was delicious. There was absolutely no way the five of them should’ve been able to finish the whole thing, but somehow, they did. It paired beautifully with the wine, though they definitely had too much. Despite her ability to heal, she was drunk all evening and had a hangover the next morning.

They were a little concerned over how the very-much-mortal Copley handled it, but they figured he'd pull it together. He called them a week later, still hungover, and told them to never contact him again.

He’ll get over it. Maybe.


	3. Chapter 3

Andy was sick.

It was the flu. Nile was certain. She had gone by the pharmacy to restock Andy’s first-aid kit when they’d gotten into town, and the shelf for flu meds had been swiped clean. No immune boosters, no painkillers, no pills for indigestion. The pharmacist had the harried look of a retail worker pushed to the edge of unimaginable violence, and the streets were far emptier than they should’ve been given the time of year.

No Christmas gift better than an infection, she supposed.

Convincing the team of this was harder than it should’ve been.

Joe broke out Booker’s old stash of liver-poisoning vodka and drank himself to death, thinking she was about to leave them for good. Nicky became a whirlwind of activity, muttering about herbal remedies as he tore through old textbooks and journals.

She borrowed his phone while he wasn’t looking and saw an invoice for medicinal leeches. She quietly resolved not to leave him alone with Andy for a while.

Andy herself took the diagnosis poorly. She decided she was fine, and the more Nile tried to tell her otherwise, the harder she dug her heels in. she refused any advice to rest, and decided this was the perfect time to do some drills with her labrys.

Nile watched nervously, biting her nails as she spun her ax back and forth in wide, sharp arcs. She was slower than she should’ve been, and had to put far more effort into her swings than normal. Three months ago, she wouldn’t have caught it; but there were some perks to working together all day every day.

Just as she was about to risk her life by telling her to stop, Andy dropped the ax.

It was clearly intentional. There was no surprise on her face. Her clammy skin went from simply pale to greenish; then she turned and puked on the training mats.

“Alright,” Nile said, plucking up the ax so Andy couldn’t grab it again.

One half-hearted wrestling match later, Nile still had the ax and Andy was propped up on the couch. On anyone less dignified than Andromache the Scythian, Nile would call her expression a pout.

Once Nile left to grab some supplies, Joe appeared. He was absolutely wasted, and gave a passionate declaration of loyalty and love. It probably would’ve been more moving if she’d understood a word he’d said; he was speaking five-hundred-year-old Italian and occasionally slipped into equally old Arabic. she patted his hand kindly as he cried onto her shoulder, and tried to feel less murderously frustrated with herself.

A significant part of her wanted to scream. She wasn’t dying, for fuck’s sake! But another, larger part was terrified. When she’d pictured her death, she’d expected it to be a quick affair – a bullet, a knife, a bomb. She hadn’t really considered getting sick; and it filled her head with memories of the plagues and pandemics they’d helped ease civilization through. She had been a nurse and a helper during outbreaks of anthrax, the bubonic plague, the Spanish influenza.

It was the second worst way she could imagine dying; right behind drowning.

Nicky entered later on, looking exhausted. He gently pried Joe off of her, before offering heartfelt assurances that they would do everything in their power to fix this. He had the decency to say it in Greek, a language she knew, but a fever must’ve been setting in at this point. She swore he said something like: “Fear not. The leeches will be here soon.”

While this was happening, Nile was waiting in line at the pharmacy, guarding the very last flu medication they had. A little old lady was giving her the stink-eye from the now polished clean shelf, but Nile refused to be cowed. These meds had nearly cost her an eyeball from another customer, and she would leave with them or die trying.

Once she’d paid and escaped, she hit up the supermarket for some soups and healthy foods. Now that Andy was mortal, a diet of vodka, chips, and eight-hundred-year-old obscure delicacies would not suffice. Nile would probably need to set up some doctor’s appointments as well, now that she thought about it.

She was struck with the thought that Andy had probably never had a vaccine in her life, and bumped the doctor’s appointment up a few rungs in her list of priorities.

She came home to a disaster. The whole place reeked of alcohol, Joe was passed out on top of the bookcase, and Nicky was screaming himself hoarse in Spanish over the phone.

She shook her head. If it weren’t for their immortality, she would’ve had serious doubts over how they made it this far.

She sat next to Andy and started pulling out pill bottles.

“Two of these a day; one in the mornings, one in the evenings,” she said, waiting for Andy to nod before continuing. “One tablespoon of this in the mornings, and one of these at night. Make sure you have this one with food.”

“Right,” Andy croaked, when she was sure Nile was done. She paused, looking at the medicine, then turned to Nile seriously.

“What- uh, what kind of flu is this, exactly?”

Nile tilted her head to the side. “The normal kind, I think.”

Andy huffed. “I figured, but- what are my chances here?”

“Oh!” Nile said, “Oh, no, this strain is harmless. I was talking to the pharmacist earlier. You’ll be fine, medicine or no; you just need to stay comfy and warm, and sleep off the symptoms.”

Andy sighed in relief, relaxing back onto the couch. “Okay. Good. Thank you.”

“No worries,” Nile answered, “Think you could keep some chicken soup down?”

…

The next day, Nicky proudly strode back in from the post office, a suspiciously large container in tow.

“Please,” Nile said, Pausing mid-stir over the pot of porridge on the stove. “Tell me those aren’t what I think they are.”

“It’s alright,” he answered, “I learnt how to do this from a Greek physician. Andy’s going to be fine.”

“I really don’t think-”

“You are not putting leeches on me!” Andy yelled from the couch next door. “I would _literally_ rather die!”

“They’re hygienic!” Nicky called, “I checked myself!”

“Absolutely-” she was cut off by a coughing fit.

“Absolutely not! Nicky, I love you to pieces, but we’re not doing bloodletting! We are not!”

Nicky pouted, sagging slightly. As if sensing this from the other room, Andy let out an audible sigh.

“If Nile’s thing hasn’t caused improvement in the next three days, we’ll revisit the leeches,” she conceded.

Nicky perked up again.

“Where are we even gonna keep those?” Nile asked, returning to the pot.

“I have a place,” he answered cryptically.

A few hours later, Joe wondered out of the bedroom in a state of hungover shock.

“I am no longer allowed to keep my phone on me and drink at the same time,” he instructed them, “There is a package on my desk, and I’m terrified of checking to see what it is.”

“That’s probably for the best,” Nile answered as she popped the pill bottles on Andy’s behalf. The two women shared a look, and came to the mutual agreement not to say a word.


End file.
